tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58127929001039334942018-09-17T01:12:11.942-04:00Just another hacker’s weblogNite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-74115873364426039152015-02-27T17:24:00.001-05:002015-02-27T17:24:14.509-05:00LLAP Leonard NimoyThis is a subject that I have shared with people close to me, mostly as idle discussion, shared geekery, or drunken rambling. This morning's news about the passing of Leonard Nimoy has brought it to the fore for me so I thought I would try to put it in writing somewhere where it can be seen without having to worry about my bar tab.<br /><br />Anecdotally there seems to be a certain fondness for Mr. Spock amongst segments of the Neurodiversity/Autism/Aspergers community. A wonderful example is <a href="https://pensiveaspie.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/thank-you-leonard-nimoy/" target="_blank">this</a> piece by Pensive Aspie (a 'pen-name' but, so what, it is the best way to find this person's writing) titled <a href="https://pensiveaspie.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/thank-you-leonard-nimoy/" target="_blank">"Thank you Leonard Nimoy."</a>&nbsp;In it the author describes growing up as an undiagnosed Aspie and the relationship they had with both the fictional Mr. Spock and the real Leonard Nimoy. With a few changes, it is pretty close to my life. I grew up with LtCdr Data and LtCdr Spock (TNG was airing weekly and TOS was given eagerly anticipated annual marathons on a local broadcast affiliate).<br /><br />It would be nearly twenty years before I was ever formally diagnosed as an Aspie but I still identified with these observers of the 'human condition'. My heros were not the bold captains/explorers/ladies-men, they were the outsiders, logical, knowledgeable, and skilled; trying to find a middle ground where they could be accepted by the rest of the crew and the rest of society. They were often the butt of jokes which they did not understand or derided for their 'overly-cerebral' approach to the problems they faced, but every episode it usually fell to them (at least in part) to make sense of what was happening and how to put things right. When they had to hide themselves from an alien civilization donning a wooly hat could cover their ears or claiming to be from a far-off continent could explain their complexion but they were always betrayed by their mannerisms and intonation. No matter how they tried to be similar to everyone else on their ship they were always the outsider. To me these were people (fictional people but people nonetheless) who shared much of my existence.<br /><br />Even as an adult, after I was diagnosed I still felt this kinship with those alien outsiders. In some ways, especially so. Once labeled as an Aspie, or placed on the Autism spectrum, I was given an explanation for why I didn't fit in but that just meant that I now had to contend with the people who view Autistic people as some cruel aberration that needs to be locked away, studied and prodded, and eventually eradicated. Leonard Nimoy never made me feel that way and often seeing him play Spock, or even reading or hearing his kind words could make me feel just a little better. Knowing that there was someone in the world that thought 'we are all people' was a good enough reason to show kindness and compassion, could get me through at least a little more of the day.<br /><br />Now, today, we face a world where there is one less voice saying, 'we are all people'. And the world is poorer for that.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-9695062582909781392015-02-27T10:50:00.003-05:002015-02-27T10:51:20.399-05:00Confusion about what Title II isSome of my friends on Twitter seem to be confused about the nature of Title II authority and classification and Twitter is a terrible medium for addressing that sort of thing so I thought I would try this as a medium for explaining what I think about the new FCC order.<br /><br />To start off, it helps to look at the FCC's summary of the "Net neutrality" order they issued yesterday: <a href="http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0226/DOC-332260A1.pdf">http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0226/DOC-332260A1.pdf</a><br />We don't have the full text of the order but that is long, dense, and mostly legalese that doesn't matter much to you and me (unless you are the embodiment of an ISP).<br /><br />The largest point of confusion seems to be over exactly who is covered by this Title II reclassification. The answer is simple: ISPs such as Verizon (Wireline and Wireless), AT&amp;T (U-Verse and Wireless), Comcast, Time-Warner Cable, Clear (if they still exist), and any other wireline or wireless broadband provider. Note the absence of hosting companies, web services, content services, and so on. This order affects how your internet access is delivered to you, not what content is available on the Internet.<br /><br />One fact that was largely left out of the hype on both sides of the fight over "Net Neutrality" before this order is that this really just brings the regulation of ISPs back under the same rules they operated under before 2002. In 2002 the FCC classified Cable Modem service as an "Information Service" (<a href="http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html">http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html</a>) instead of a "telecommunications service". The effect was to reduce the authority the FCC had over last-mile ISPs to regulate their behavior. ISPs who used other methods of providing access (telcos providing ISDN and DSL, anyone providing fiber-optic lines or the many different forms of wireless access) managed to get their ISP operations classified under this rule (even while the standard analog telephone service that were provided on the exact same strand of copper as the DSL service remained a Title II service). The logic of the Information Service classification were born out of a very different time and in a very different environment from what we have now. The bulk of the population had only experienced being 'online' through services such as AOL, CompUServe, and so on; broadband connectivity was novel and only available in very limited areas; the bulk of online content still catered to users on dial-up connections (which were a strange hybrid of the two classifications, the connection between you and AOL (provided by your local Baby-Bell) was still covered under Title II because it was just a funny sort of phone call, but AOL itself was an 'information service' which acted as a portal to data from their own private network and the various networks they connected to.<br /><br />The concerns about websites suddenly being shuttered and popular services being blocked are essentially the opposite of what this new FCC order does and are mostly the result of FUD spread around by ISPs opposing Net Neutrality rules. The legal status of Google's web sites, Netflix, or any website, IRC network, FTP server, or any other site, node, service, you connect to through the internet has not changed. They are still covered under the same patchwork of laws with terrible acronyms containing lots of "C"s such as the CFAA (Computer Fraud And Abuse Act of 1986, as amended in 1989,1994,1996,), CDA (Communications Decency Act of 1996), DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998), and ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986), as well as amendments to those laws by the USA PATRIOT Act (not going to spell that one out Act of 2002) and Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act of 2008 (and many more laws concerning the content of communications, email, hosting and all of the other stuff that actually makes up what you see and do on The Internet. The Title II classification specifically bars ISPs from discriminating against content or interfering with your connection based on the content, protocols, and services you use.<br /><br />While the new FCC order does not do many things that I believe would be positive for customers (such as measures which would quickly increase the number of choices consumers have for ISPs or regulating rates to reduce the absurdly high costs ISPs charge because of their near monopoly position in local markets), this order definately does not pose a threat to the content and services you use your ISP to access.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-48218259212153941872013-08-24T15:18:00.001-04:002013-08-24T15:19:14.888-04:00Revisiting interfaces and computer educationOver four years ago I wrote a <a href="http://blog.nite0wl.net/2009/04/on-alternative-interfaces.html">piece</a> on computer interfaces (logical and physical), looking back on it I could have done much more with it but, I can often conceptualize much more than I can actually execute. Yesterday I came across a <a href="http://changelog.complete.org/archives/7562-i-introduced-my-5-year-old-and-2-year-old-to-startx-and-xmonad-theyre-delighted">blog post</a> by <a href="http://changelog.complete.org/about">John Goerzen</a>, a software developer from Kansas. In this piece he talks about how he introduced his young children to computers starting with the time he and his, then three year old, son built a computer together and more recently, he introduced his kids to a limited GUI in the form of xmonad.<br /><br />This story reminded me of my own experience being introduced to computers. When my parents were preparing for my birth in the early 80's my father convinced his employer to provide him with computers which he could use to work at home, they responded by providing an AT&amp;T (ATTIS) workstation for our home. I grew up with my parents letting me occasionally 'play' on the machines we had. Before I could read I was learning to navigate AT&amp;T System V UNIX, CP/M-86, and DOS on AT&amp;T workstations, learning to type my name in various editors including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar">Wordstar</a>&nbsp;(according to my father, managing to wear out at least one keyboard along the way) and working my way up to figuring out how to bring up such 80's stalwarts of computer entertainment such as Tetris: The Russian Challenge (at the time having a picture of the Kremlin rendered in code page 437 was amazing). By the time Windows 3.0 was released I was the one in the family who had to figure out how to install it (along with the new hardware that became available with the introduction of the early Windows Multimedia Extentions such as CD-ROM drives and sound cards) and then show my parents how to use it.<br /><br />These early experiences determined a lot about both how I understand and interact with computers as well as how I dealt with computers when I was in school as a child. Until very recently I was still having to help my father run the copy of Lotus Organizer (for Windows 3.0), which finally ended when he had to replace a dead XP machine with a 64-bit system running Windows 7 which would refuse to run 16-bit executables. When I first received formal computer classes in grade-school I had been using Unix and IBM compatible CLI systems for several years and was frustrated by the kludged together Apple II machines we were given to use, that we were only allowed to run Logo-BASIC, that we didn't have the greater control I felt the IBM-style keyboards provided. For children in the New York City public schools of the late 80's and early 90's &nbsp;'computer education' consisted of Logo-BASIC and typing classes, boring and frustrating for someone who had experienced the power and variety of university software libraries for Unix and CP/M, and limiting in later life. At what could have been a critical opportunity for introducing children with a minimum of preconceptions, school programs forced students to progress in lock-step and actively discouraged exploration and understanding of the underlying concepts that made the computers work at all; emphasis was placed on touch typing (on non-standard keyboards) and learning non-transferable skills (Logo-BASIC, useful for learning the essential structure of BASIC programs but useless if you don't introduce data-structures, variables and all of the other components of real programming).<br /><br />In Middle School the technology lag was heightened. Every classroom was receiving PCs with Windows 9x attached to a shared T1 at a time when most homes were getting online (if they were at all) with 56kbps analogue modems and AOL (or their dwindling competitors), yet NYC's public school computer classes still used the same Apple II's I had been introduced to years earlier. Instruction in computing was now a strange mix of basic typing and rudimentary instruction in how to navigate the World Wide Web (at the time a very cutting edge term since we hadn't even started the Dot Com bubble). Alta Vista and Doom II ruled the world.<br /><br />In high school the Dot Com bubble was in full swing, aDSL was beginning to enter the home, and I was being denied entry into my school's computer science program. No matter, I spent my free periods and lunch times building the Comp Sci classes' computers and robotics labs from spare IBM 386s in the metal shop and completing the left over Comp Sci class exams as a way to kill time while waiting for OS installs to complete. Eventually I transferred to a high school which offered internships and practical skill demonstrations for course credit, I spent my remaining terms bouncing between corporate law firms' IT departments and non-profit advocacy groups. Learning to navigate Dell's enterprise support phone system trumped any actual technical ability. Even amongst the full time staff, no one had a college degree in IT.<br /><br />Cue college, the Dot Com bubble has begun to collapse, the concept of networks and broadband connectivity has begun to enter the home I have been running Linux since Widows 98/2000 (an actual OS build variant, not the semi-contemporary OSes) began erasing my hard drive every six months. I have convinced my father that a router and DHCP server are important for allowing the whole family to share the aDSL line and am still trying to explain that a 100Mbps ethernet switch and a 10Mbps Ethernet hub are significantly different. WiFi becomes something that a university student plugs into the PCMCIA port of their laptop (if you are one of the 20 or so students at the university which own a laptop). By the time I have transferred again I am arguing with the college's IT department about the blocking of Usenet News, IMAP and SMTP while Windows XP and built-in 802.11 NICs have finally supplanted Windows 2000 and plug-in wireless cards. Eventually I drop out of college because no amount of Adderall and Jolt can keep up with the demands of working 12-hour/day remote support jobs and 8-10 hour/day class schedules. The idea of a degree in applied computer science (IT) is only embraced by 'colleges' which advertise on subways and offer it as a course of study alongside programs in HVAC repair and GED completion.<br /><br />Fast forward several years, I am at the local Department of Labor office, fulfilling the required skill and job search review. The gentleman in front of me in line is a recently laid-off IBM mainframe engineer, both of us receive the same response from the clerk: 'Wow, computers... you know, we offer classes in computer skills. We teach you to make a resume on a computer and show you how to use Office.' They are proud of this. I try to explain that I was using and working on computers when MS Office was introduced, that I still have install disks for Word 1.0 and DOS. They think I need classes in typing and using a mouse.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-53385482696945639662013-08-17T12:09:00.001-04:002013-08-17T12:14:23.478-04:00JobsA short post this time while I try to rein in a much longer (and more rant-y) piece on a more serious topic.<br /><br />I have never hidden my extreme dislike of Steve Jobs. I object to his deification by his followers^Wfans and the popular media. I found his attitude grating, his business practices and ideology distasteful, and his hypocritical, narcissistic self-aggrandizing at the expense of the brilliant engineers, designers, and developers who actually made the devices and products he built his fortune and reputation on to be repugnant.<br />So, I will certainly not be seeing the latest whitewashing of his legacy starring a current Hollywood darling.<br />I do not think you should either but, you do not have any reason to take my word for it (see the preceding several lines), just take a look at Steve Wozniac's reaction to this movie (<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Wozniak+reviews+Jobs">https://www.google.com/search?q=Wozniak+reviews+Jobs</a>, no I won't link directly to most of the sites because they are from Gawker) and decide for yourself. I will stick with "Pirates of Silicon Valley" and "iWoz".<br /><br />Unlike Jobs, I have faith in my readers to be able to make their own decisions.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-65196738860891909162013-07-26T09:28:00.002-04:002013-07-26T09:28:40.508-04:00SysAdmin DayToday is the 14th observation of System Administrator Appreciation Day, a day when (in theory) people show their appreciation for their IT staff for making everything work the other 364 days in the year. I have yet to see anyone outside of an IT department observe it but, if you feel inclined to do so, check out&nbsp;<a href="http://sysadminday.com/">http://sysadminday.com/</a>.<br /><br />Personally a lot of the IT people I know would settle for a living wage on a W-2 or 1040.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-58480576578242913492013-07-10T16:05:00.002-04:002013-07-10T16:05:31.955-04:00The new .nyc<br /><br />Later this year (assuming that everything goes as tech blogs and the City predict) a new TLD will be available, .nyc, which will supposedly be available to businesses and organizations operating in New York City as well as (supposedly) residents of NYC. The City has setup a website claiming to offer information about the city's new TLD (<a href="http://mydotnyc.com/">mydotnyc.com</a>) but it doesn't provide much in the way of useful information right now (a pair of press releases and a long list of links to blogs and news sites prefaced by some vague PR/marketing slurry). It is even a bit vague about exactly who would be eligible to apply for a domain under the new TLD or how to actually do so.<br /><br />As some might remember ICANN's gTLD expansion program has been running for a few years now (about 4 by my last estimate) and there have been many previous discussions about local TLDs for much longer (probably since around when the national TLDs based on two letter ISO country codes were introduced back before the collapse of the USSR). When Neo Amsterdam and I heard about the gTLD expantion program a few years ago, we began cooking up an idea of starting a company to apply for and administer a .nyc TLD, we have these ideas occasionally and being civic minded technologists we come up with ideas for how we can do something of value to the community (previous ideas included starting up a truly independent ISP in Brooklyn which would offer modern FTTP service to areas of the city which are badly served by the incumbent telcos and CATV operators). In our discussions we had decided that one of our best selling points for a proposal was that we were New York City residents and that we could offer competitive costs since it would basically be run by a handful of local hackers who were more interested in making things work and getting by then a business focused on stock prices, big profits, and bigger executive compensation. Of course we have no money and no existing organization or capital so it never got off the ground. Instead of selecting a local organization, or operating the new TLD through part of the city government (like the Department of Informaton Technology [DOIT]which would officially 'own' the .nyc TLD) the city chose Virginia based Neustar, Inc (<a href="http://www.neustar.biz/?__utma=1.399910478.1373481197.1373481197.1373481197.1&amp;__utmb=1.0.10.1373481197&amp;__utmc=1&amp;__utmx=-&amp;__utmz=1.1373481197.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)&amp;__utmv=1.|2=Status=nyDir-nyRegU=1&amp;__utmk=174117282">www.Neustar.biz</a>) which currently operates the .us and .biz TLDs, a company who's only relation to the City of New York appears to be their listing on the NYSE and the fact that they will be operating the .nyc TLD registry.<br /><div><br /></div><div>The selection of a non-New York based private company (or private sector company) to manage the city's soon-to-be TLD seems to be at odds with most of the PR material that the City has been producing to try to talk up the new TLD. There are plenty of companies based in, or operating primarily in the New York City area which should be perfectly capable of operating a TLD but instead it is a company based several states away with no appreciable presence in the city, for a program which is being sold as being for the benefit of the city's population and businesses, or to benefit the city's 'silicon alley' and start-up population, why wasn't the responsibility of operating this TLD given to a company which actually employs some of those people and would be contributing back to the city itself.</div><div><br /></div><div>As an aside, I have been trying to secure the remaining relevant TLDs for my domain (I have .net and .us just now), maybe, unless I have a sudden change of circumstances, I'll try to secure nite0wl.nyc. Anyone having similar thoughts? Or maybe just some fun ideas for domain name jokes using this new TLD? Put them in the comments.</div>Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-68582339228463934412012-05-20T10:39:00.001-04:002012-05-20T10:40:21.995-04:00Thinkpad RIP<div><p>While this might, in the fullness of time, end up looking alarmist and reactionary, I believe that this is acceptable and, in fact the circumstances which would make that so would probably be welcome.<br>Last week Lenovo unveiled their new 2012 Thinkpad lineup. Most years there would not be much of interest to any but the most diehard of hardware geeks and Thinkpad aficionados (my reader/s might be aware that I have a small collection of Thinkpads but I do not count myself in the group I am referring to here). This time is something of a different situation. This year Lenovo has made it clear that they see "Thinkpad" as a brand in terms of name and color scheme only.<br>This time, they got rid of the keyboard.</p><p>People who know me know that I am particular about keyboards. They have seen my review of the Das Keyboard (which is still in use exactly where it was when I reviewed it), they have seen my late manufacture M5-2 and heard my periodic diatribes on why I love it. They usually have trouble understanding why my smartphone and tablets all have keyboards. Guests in my home have been woken in the middle of the night by the noise of me typing on one of the several mechanical switch keyboards on my desk. I am particular about keyboards.</p><p>Thinkpads, when they were introduced in 1992, did not have any real competition or comparison in the laptop market since one did not really exist at the time. As time went on though Thinkpads retained their increasingly distinct keyboards while other manufacturers and brands dropped mechanical spring switches for membrane switches, ignored spill protection on all but the most ruggedised&#160; or expensive models, introduced ever flatter and cramped keyboards culminating in the current crop of "chicklet" keyboards. Thinkpads managed to keep all the keys of IBM's classic 'space saver' design while even occasionally adding a couple of unique function keys which made laptops more comfortable to use.</p><p>This past week put an end to all of that. Lenovo, out of a desire to "standardise across all lines" replaced the nearly 20 year old keyboard design with the "isolation" (read 'chicklet') keyboard that they had introduced on their consumer and ultra budget lines. They claim that this new six row design improves typing speed and comfort and that they 'tested it with hundreds of users'. I used one on a Thinkpad Edge (a Thinkpad in name only made for the brand conscious on a budget) that I was given for work during the winter holidays, it was a nightmare. While some of the problems I had were unrelated to the keyboard itself (task critical software and hardware issues and the unaccustomed weight and bulk of a 15 inch laptop after years of using 9-12 inch netbooks and ultraportables) typing on this new keyboard was a nightmare. Breaking up the classic operation and navigation cluster (home, end, insert, delete, page up, page down and the arrow keys) and scattering them around or relegating them to Fn+* combination functions made common tasks more difficult and the flatter keys with significantly reduced travel made it physically painful to type, even at angles and conditions that have been perfectly comfortable to use my X201 in.</p><p>If Lenovo does not return to using the true Thinkpad keyboard, I will have to resort to nursing my old Thinkpads along as long as possible (a task made more difficult by Lenovo's design and build quality failings) until I can find someone who does make a laptop for real use.</p></div>Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-652086985917846652012-01-01T00:07:00.002-05:002012-01-01T11:54:23.463-05:002011 in review<div><p>Since I have not managed to keep this updated as much as I had planned, I am going to try for a short summary of the year that we have just left.</p><p>1. My unemployment streak ended shortly after my initial unemployment insurance ran out, I now have a job that gives benefits instead of exclusively exploiting me and screwing me over.</p><p>2. I became a recovering smoker, like recovering drinkers and recovering sysadmins I have had my difficulties and my moments of unrecovery but e-cigarettes are helping me stay recovered.</p><p>3. In 2011 I recieved a diagnosis of Aspergers. This has ended years of ineffectual therapies and allowed me to make improvements in my life.</p><p>4. I have, after a prolonged period which left me increasingly bitter, entered a relationship. It has been a wonderful experience so far and we are very happy togeather.</p><p>5. Kickstarter has occasionally posed a threat to my wallet as there are so many deserving and interesting projects for geeks and hackers.</p><p>You might have noticed that the items listed here are generally positive, there is a reason. Unlike the past several years I have not had significant personal disasters or crises which stood out as a single event and any events that did hurt me or were definitively negative were of a very personal nature which does not need airing here.</p></div>Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-3377976433670405302011-08-18T21:53:00.001-04:002011-08-18T21:53:04.771-04:00Trashing made easy<div><p>Obviously I am way behind on keeping this blog updated but here is something from the last NYC 2600 meeting. We found these bins sitting on the street on the way to dinner. Each of them overflowing with bundles of paper marked as "donor packets". They contained check images, financial records and all sorts of other information which could have been abused (if only we had fewer moral objections to commiting fraud and theft). We snapped some photos, returned some papers which had fallen on the ground and moved on.</p><br/><img src='http://lh3.ggpht.com/-A4mNNpA6k-I/Tk3B_IZZ_OI/AAAAAAAAABw/N9VIe0eHFyY/2011-08-05_20-17-48_348.png' /></div>Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-29264959221379089792011-04-07T00:22:00.003-04:002011-04-07T01:13:36.169-04:00Breaking In# mv humor /dev/nullOut of a combination of boredom and morbid curiosity I tried watching the premier of Breaking In, Fox's new penetration tester 'comedy'. Having done so I regret it and I would like that 30 minutes of my life back, I could have enjoyed myself more by spending it reinstalling Win 98.<br />While I could spend a paragraph or three complaining about the superficial wooden acting or the formulaic casting but you wouldn't be reading this blog if you cared about that more than about how they treat the profession of penetration testing and information security and the world of hacking.<br /><br />So, how much penetration testing does go on in the show? Not much, except maybe superficially, and even then it tends to resemble something Tom Cruise does in a movie rather than Sneakers, much less real life. Occasionally the writers will remember that it's supposed to be set in a security company so they will have a character drilling a safe or bring up a character's past cracking his college's admissions and grading systems. Instead of trying to show any element of actual hacking, cracking, social engineering, or security testing the characters walk around putting on fake accents that would make Keanu Reeves cringe, clicking a hyperlink that changes their college tuition counter to a page saying "You graduated!" or tossing around buzzwords that sound like they were lifted from a news paper 'computer security for morons' column ten years ago. The core cast is stocked with 'hackers' and 'security geniuses' whose credentials seem to exist because they decided they do and their work seems to be a slim presence for 'geeky' pop culture references and the nominal hero character to feel awkward fro the audience's amusement. In the whole half hour the closest I got to laughing was when the 'hero' (who has been tasked to steal a car from a high end dealership) announces "They should really have a gate here." and heaves a rock through the showroom window.<br /><br />Maybe I was expecting too much from Fox, too much from a comedy and too much from Hollywood in general. Just once I would like to see a program that treats the subjects of technology and security with some dignity and seriousness, and obviously this isn't it.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-82362388893523915322011-03-14T01:36:00.003-04:002011-03-14T01:48:34.935-04:00Updates and an opinion from the UKThe distribution upgrades from last week are coming along, if less smoothly than I had hoped (the inline radeon/radeonhd driver is not all it's supposed to be) forcing some additional changes. Thanks to a combination of Lenovo's hardware design and some weird heisenbugs I can only have working network management and battery monitoring/power control on my Thinkpad under GNOME, KDE 4.6 seems to be a bit of a step backwards, and for some reason Wicd is only being packaged by 3rd party contributors which means it will likely be a few weeks before it's available under 11.4.<br /><br />In other news of interest to no one, over ten days since my last real cigarette but my nicotine intake still fluctuates, averaging above average levels. I might just have to try getting some of the very low nicotine cartridges to test whether the high intake is likely to be more attributable to physical/mental rote actions or chemical dependence. On a related note, I found <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terence-blacker/terence-blacker-kick-the-bullies-not-the-habit-2211003.html">this column</a> from The Independent few weeks ago and the more times I read it the more I like the author's points.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-74223819518352119632011-03-09T23:06:00.007-05:002011-03-09T23:58:32.015-05:00Counting down changes<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://countdown.opensuse.org/"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 256px; height: 256px;" src="http://countdown.opensuse.org/" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />First, as I do when OpenSuSE releases a new version I get reminded about hardware upgrades.replacements and changes that I had been putting off or which I should do before the software change in order to avoid a problem during or after the installation. Last time (the change from 11.2 to 11.3) the changes in video drivers caused issues with my workstation for several days while I learned the new CLI utilities necessary to compile and install Nvidia's drivers and then work out their new xorg.conf structure. (At that time, I considered the Nouveau driver they had switched to, to be far from ready for primetime.)<br /><br />This time, in an attempt to avoid the problems with Nvidia's cards and drivers I've decided to replace it with an ATI card. Sounds simple enough, until you try to find one that is actually a straight forward replacement for my current GeForce 9800 GT. It seems to me that a video card designed to drive multiple high resolution monitors should actually have more than one of a given type of port, yet nearly every card that is easily available has only one DVI port (or that DVI-esq port for a dual VGA adapter) and then they cram the rest of the faceplate with HDMI, DisplayPort and VGA ports which then means that they have to build the card up to two slots thick which then tends to cause cooling issues if you happen to be using any of your other expansion slots. Then of course I have to find one that not only is available but is in my price range.<br /><br />Eventually I managed to find one that actually met my needs, a Radeon HD 4670 by XFX. From the looks of it it is one of maybe three ATI cards which actually has dual DVI ports (and the only one that can be found for less than $150). It should be arriving tomorrow (assuming that UPS doesn't fuck up again) which should be almost perfect timing.<br /><br />There is also my effort (thanks largely to the ever more pervasive smoking bans I have to deal with and the exorbitant taxes levied on cigarettes in my area) to change my smoking habits. This afternoon marked one week since I have smoked a cigarette with hardly any cravings (or the common nicotine withdrawal symptoms) thanks to Green Smoke's electronic cigarette product. While I'm still working on adjusting my nicotine intake with this system so far the experience has been a good one. Hopefully I'll be marking 29 days of not smoking at the next 2600 meeting.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-80978394443922786762011-02-03T19:08:00.001-05:002011-02-03T19:10:12.552-05:00Victory over Lenovo and Realtek with Linux and IBMAt least amongst the local 2600 attendees, Lenovo ThinkPads and a mixture of netbooks seem to be the preferred computer of hackers. Most netbooks are either sufficiently generic or use such a small range of parts that driver support under Linux is not much of an issue, even when it is a few google searches of your distro's forums and wiki will usually turn up a simple fix. Laptops, unfortunately, don't have the same degree of homogeny and seem to use far more varied and unusual components, many sold under either generic descriptors (Wireless N!) or OEM brandings (ThinkPad BGN Wireless), neither will allow you to identify the chipset and driver that you will require unless someone else has discovered and posted that information in a searcable place.<br />This is where my last few weeks of frustration began.<br />Having become tired of the limited processing power and the rather brain-dead storage design of my EEEpc 901 (linux edition) I decided to take another shot at finding a reasonably priced ultra-portable laptop. ThinkPads have grown on me lately as a number of my friends either own one or consulted me while buying one. Luckilly for me Lenovo was running a few sales the week I decided to actually buy the new machine, however I was still rather budget concious and opted to go for the cheaper generic default options on a few parts that were low priority for me. I included the WLAN card on that list, big mistake.<br />When the new X201 finally arrived (1 business day and a weekend late, as is usual for the local UPS drivers) I checked that it passed POST and diagnostics and then promptly formatted the harddrive and installed a couple of linux distros. Installations complete, I logged in and began checking that everything was working, of course the wifi card wasn't but I eventually tracked it down in the hardware configuration. Once I got a wired connection going I was able to pull down the neccessary firmware packages for the detected chipset (the Realtec RTL8191se) as well as the vendor's official driver source tarballs so that I could compile the driver for another distro.<br /><br />Once the firmware and drivers were installed and loaded the card would be detected and attach to a standard wireless network interface and even allow AP searches and connect, but only for a few minutes at a time. Reported signal strengths appeared as only one of about 5 values (0db, -1db, 35db, 47db and 53db) which would rapidly change until the connection would drop (without generating the standard system messages to take down the interface so that ifconfig would still report a connection). Despite being sold as 802.11n capable it would not detect 802.11n only networks or APs broadcasting on the 802.11n long distance frequencies. This obviously doesn't qualify as working so something needs to be done.<br /><br />Having exhausted all of the tweaked and custom built versions of the realtek drivers available I decided to try replacing the card. Lenovo won't sell you just the component nor will they actually sell you an upgrade; they will make you go through a torturous returns process (which they will refuse to complete if you have made any changes to the content of the harddrive or left any visible signs of opening the body) before they will eventually issue a refund which you can then use to purchase a new laptop with the hardware you need. Luckilly a competent system builder can easilly remove the keyboard and palm rest assemblies (9 clearly marked screws) to get access to the PCI-e slots, and other internals; it should be simple to find a replacement PCI-e wi-fi card and simply slide it in then shouldn't it? Of course not. Lenovo, under the guise of 'ensuring compliance with FCC regulations' for certifying the "combination of wireless tranciever and antenna", has also locked you into buying all future parts for *your* laptop by adding a PCI-ID whitelisting routine to their BIOS. If you replace the PCI-e card with one from a third party, even one of the exact same model, the BIOS will halt with an 1802 error and refuse to boot. There are a handful of tools for modifying Lenovo's BIOS update packages but Lenovo's BIOS update tool requires a functioning Windows installation, so much for that option.<br /><br />For those who aren't too keen on risking the destruction of their laptop and buying Windows there is another option. It isn't much cheaper then buying a Windows license but it won't actually require paying Microsoft. IBM operates the post warranty service parts center for ThinkPad and ThinkCenter computers. Their parts aren't cheap and you will have to be very sure about exactly which part you need (as you need to order by the exact part number contained in your computer's maintenance manual) but it will work and they will ship nearly any part via UPS's next day delivery service. So, as long as you can find a properly supported card in the maintence manual you can get it without having to send your computer anywhere or having to deal with Lenovo's helpless desk and drain bramaged customer disservice^w^wsales people.<br /><br />Once UPS finally got around to delivering my overpriced Intel Centrino 6300 wireless card I had it swapped out and working in five minutes.<br /><br />Details about the 1802 boot error and related issues can be found on ThinkWiki.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-7802962326145934422011-01-29T13:28:00.002-05:002011-01-29T13:47:38.584-05:00Best laid plansI was gearing up to write up a summary of the trials and tribulations of getting openSuSE and Backtrack Linux up and running on a new Thinkpad x201 series laptop (it has been quite an effort so far), particularly focusing on Linux/vendor hardware support issues and the effect of Lenovo's practice of adding a pciid whitelist check to their BIOS to prevent owners from using hardware from non-Lenovo sources.<br /><br />Unfortunately, despite the promising start in acquiring the (hopefully) final part necessary to fix the most egregious issue (wifi), UPS has managed to derail this in a spectacular manner ("Well you can't blame us for not delivering the package marked "URGENT!, Rush Delivery, Overnight AM delivery" because we declared an emergency nine and a half hours after it was supposed to have arrived. We'll probably try to deliver it Monday. Probably. No I don't understand why that might be a problem or why you are unhappy about us claiming that we would deliver it tonight hours after we had pulled all of our trucks off the road due to a 16th of an inch snowfall.")<br /><br />Hopefully the part will arrive in sufficient time that I can actually work on it in the <span style="font-style: italic;">copious free time</span> I have during my week-long certification boot camp. Untill then, fuck UPS.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-69597835923368249122011-01-07T11:35:00.002-05:002011-01-07T11:49:28.869-05:00Wikileaks followup for today's 2600 meetingAs a heads up to all of the 2600 meeting attendees who read this, today I will have about two dozen DVDs with some Wikileaks related content much of which is difficult (and, depending on how you go about it, expensive) to track down and acquire. Quantities will be limited to that for now (don't have the cash for more blanks) and it will be first come first served (although at 2GiB a decent size flash drive and a few minutes with a laptop at the meeting can get you the content in case I run out of discs). I'll leave the exact contents a 'secret' until you pick on up but I will assure everyone that it's all been checked for anything malicious.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-72307545737463049442010-12-14T16:00:00.004-05:002010-12-14T16:44:09.416-05:00WikileaksI won't be getting into a discussion of my feelings on Wikileaks or the media circus surrounding them and Julian Assange. What I will put here is some simple but important information which several people have been looking for or wondering about this past week, namely how to get the insurance file and confirm that you got a legitimate copy.<br /><br />First: getting the file. This is the tricky part because many of the wikileaks mirror sites don't have copies of the file or if they do it's a partial placeholder. Once the file has downloaded it should be 1.4 GiB (1,491,834,576 bytes). You should then confirm that the file is not only complete but untampered with, to help with this Wikileaks has helpfully posted sha1 hashes for almost every file they had made available for download. According to <a href="http://mirror.wikileaks.info/wiki/Afghan_War_Diary,_2004-2010/">http://mirror.wikileaks.info/wiki/Afghan_War_Diary,_2004-2010/</a>(the one of the only mirrors that had made this page available and confirmed by checking an archived copy of the same page on the original Wikileaks site) the hash for the file insurance.aes256 is <span style="font-family: courier new;">cce54d3a8af370213d23fcbfe8cddc8619a0734c</span>. On most Unix-like systems you should be able simply issue the command <span style="font-family: courier new;">sha1sum</span><i style="font-family: courier new;"> insurance.aes256</i> in the directory you have stored the file in, users of other OSs will have to find and download a checksum utility.<br /><br />Second: Once (or rather if) Wikileaks releases the password for the insurance file, they reccomend using 7zip (p7zip (available on sourceforge and many distro repositories) for Unix and Linux, 7-zip from 7-zip.org for Windows, and EZ7z (available from macupdate.com) for Mac OS) to decrypt and open the file.<br /><br />I have heard a few people speculate about attempting to brute force the password(and I found at least one person running a googledocs listing of passwords people have tried). I have mixed feelings about attempting that though. It seems to me that this file is a bit like the envelope the hero in a conspiracy thriller leaves with a lawyer (or someone else they trust) before they go confront the villain; in that case someone opening it early and spilling the secret might just take away the primary bargaining chip Wikileaks has to stave off their more desperate and less cautious adversaries, revealing the secret might well cause whoever is targeted by the contents of that file might just feel that they have nothing left to loose while anyone who had felt threatened by the unknown contents of the file but aren't actually affected by it would likely feel that they have no barriers to retaliating against Wikileaks.<br />On the other hand, like many hackers, I don't like not knowing something, especially when someone has claimed that it is something important with significant impact on the world.<br /><br />And please, don't mention the word "football" for a while.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-58301029681827700292010-11-21T10:04:00.005-05:002010-11-21T11:01:14.810-05:00Confusopolies or Why I cannot find a decent ISPBefore anything else, I wanted to encourage any readers I might have to visit Eric S Raymond's blog. It's located at <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/">http://esr.ibiblio.org/</a> and is both more frequently updated than my blog and (often) better written.<br /><br />For those of you who don't read Dilbert, a short explanation regarding the title is probably in order, the easiest being this strip from 20101121:<br /><br /><img src="http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/100000/00000/5000/800/105826/105826.strip.sunday.gif" border="0" alt="Dilbert.com" /><br /><br />When Scott Adams (the author of Dilbert) originally introduced this phrase he held "telephone service, insurance, mortgage loans, banking, and financial services" as examples of industries that had adopted this structure. I have come to think that the list has grown significantly since 1997 and has spread beyond the realm of products which are rarely purchased but are (at least seemingly) essential and extremely complex compared to more common economic decisions (ie 'which brand of <foo> has a better price per ounce?'). If I go grocery shopping I can decide between two competing brands with a fairly simple set of calculations (price/<unit of volume>). <br /><br />If I want to buy a mother board, a cell phone, a router, a laptop, a professional training course or certification, even something as theoretically homogeneous as a TV or monitor though I cannot simply compare based on a single quantitative calculation (what is the largest display area I can get for x dollars) I have to compare a significantly larger number of qualifiers almost none of which have a direct (or even an appearant indirect) relationship to the price of the item. Even more rare in most of the cases that I named above can any sort of direct price comparison be made. Different certifications and training programs don't always cover the same material, not all training programs or certifications hold the same value or reputation for potential recruiters or employers. In the US at least buying a given mobile phone or device doesn't just mean picking out the phone you like, you have to find a phone that has just the right combination of features (which is bewildering enough that product comparison charts now regularly extend to at least 3 printed pages for a 'featurephone') your purchase of a phone in the United States (and sometimes Canada) means you also have to choose which carrier you will be contracted to for the next couple of years and which of their pricing plans you will have (since in most cases any attempt to remove a feature from your service is considered to be an early termination of your contract, and thus subject to a penalty). There is no simple direct comparison of cellular carriers networks, services or pricing plans, all of them offer slightly different products at different prices which cannot be directly compared. I've even begun to suspect gas and motor oil companies are trying to get in on the act.<br /><br />I would go on but I have begun to loose the overall point of this and I get the feeling that it is degenerating into a rant, so I'm going to end things here before it gets completely out of hand.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-11231490891864965542010-10-15T09:30:00.003-04:002010-10-15T10:03:48.658-04:00Falling behindIt continues to surprise me how much I fall behind on or simply don't get done despite being unemployed. Some of it is perfectly sensible financial decisions like putting off an equipment upgrade or putting off working on a project that requires expensive supplies; other things I can only chalk up to procrastination, laziness and distractions (why didn't I write any of the three planned blog posts I came up with after the last 2600 meeting? Playing Fallout 3 is a remarkable time sink.) Now at least there are a couple of things I rather have to get out.<br /><br />The first is that somehow an inebriation prompted idea for a <i>Hackers</i> viewing party for those that couldn't afford the charity benefit anniversary party earlier this month, actually has come together. Alpha One Labs has very kindly agreed to host a viewing and hang out event at their facility in north Brooklyn this Saturday (the 16th of October if you are in the future) at a price that I think just about anyone can agree is very wallet friendly: FREE. Donations are suggested and appreciated but not required, this does mean that drinks are BYOB but free doesn't pay for much. Psytech over at A1L has set up registration at <a href="http://hackers.eventbrite.com/">http://hackers.eventbrite.com/</a>. Go there and sign up to guarantee a seat (or several), you can choose between completely free registration (good for the cash strapped AND for those who prefer cash donations) or you can donate online as part of the reservation process. I hope to see plenty of NYC 2600 people there and don't forget to tell your friends!<br /><br />The second item is is probably deserving of a more complete posting of it's own but I have let this go unsaid for too long as it is. Hackers, like the ones who attend NYC's 2600 meetings are some of the best people in the world. from simply being cool people to helping me look for job openings or when money is a bit tight. I just wanted all of you to know that you are some of the greatest people I know.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-19074601854150349892010-08-20T11:52:00.002-04:002010-08-23T00:26:47.046-04:00Save HOtel PEnnMonday is a meeting of the New York City Council Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchise. In addition to their normal duties of approving permits for sidewalk cafes and cell masts they are hearing Vornado Realty Trust's applications for zoning variances and other special planning exemptions for the building they plan to replace the Hotel Pennsylvania with. This hearing constitutes the last opportunity for <a href="http://www.2600.com/">2600</a> and supporters of the <a href="http://savehotelpenn.org/">Save Hotel Penn</a> campaign to oppose Vornado's plans to demolish the hotel. Of course, if you follow either of those blogs then you quite likely are already aware of this.<br /><br />For those who plan to attend I have a few suggestions (having attended a few similar hearings in the past and consulting with several planners and community advocates):<br />1. Dress like you belong or the role you are playing (for the social engineers this should be simple)<br />2. Follow the protocol. Speak when you are called, speak respectfully, keep your statements focused on the matters at hand and on the purpose of the committee, don't argue or make a fuss if you run out of time.<br />3. If for some reason you will attend but can't or don't want to speak you can submit written testimony. Be aware though written-only testimony will be given less weight when the committee makes it deliberations. Every bit helps though.<br />4. Passion for your issue is good, but don't over do it.<br /><br />For those of you who won't be in attendance but would like to have their name noted as supporting my statement (or possibly the statements of another attendee supporting Save The Hotel) send an email with your name and boro of residence to me by 0900 Monday the 23rd. [I know, I'm not crazy about the real name thing but this is what they want and I won't be able to put your name down without that information. You can reach me at nite[dot]0wl[dot]2600[at]gmail. All of this information will be kept in the strictest confidence and will be removed and forgotten after the hearing.<br />No promises but I want to do everything I can to make sure we put on our best showing at the hearing.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-78463558862769128042010-08-11T12:26:00.004-04:002010-08-11T14:55:26.017-04:00Android 2.2 and the Motorola DroidBecause I've noticed quite a few of the NYC 2600 crowd have Droids now I thought I would write up a short piece on the changes you can expect with the new Android 2.2 update rolling out this week.<br /><br />First: If you have rooted your phone or loaded a custom ROM, there will be some difficulty with the upgrade, depending on what you have done. Custom ROMs and bootloaders will outright block the installation of the official 2.2 update, if you had simply rooted the stock Android builds (as I had) any changes to files in the /system folder (and possibly other areas outside the /sdcard directory will usually cause the installation to fail (in my case replacing the original <i>sh</i> with a symlink to a 3rd party copy of <i>bash</i> caused validation failures during installation until I restored the original copy of sh to it's original place and name).<br />If you want to get root access back after the update Easy Root (from unstableapps.com) is the easiest way, although it will cost you a couple of dollars but works just fine and currently is the only means of gaining root on the stock 2.2 build that I am aware of. Not crazy about having to rely on a pay app that uses an obfuscated exploit to gain root written by a developer who won't share his method with the rest of the community but it seems to be the only game in town right now and I wanted BusyBox back. <br /><br />The big changes. You loose the old style App Drawer but exchange it for dedicated soft buttons for phone, browser and an app listing (similar to the app drawer) and two additional home screens (total of 5 now). Delving into the settings menu you now have additional options for your lock screen (the old pattern lock, numeric pin and alphanumeric password are available); Wireless Settings now contains some new options including USB Tethering (more on that later) but lacks the hotspot capabilities of some newer handsets. I have yet to test it thoroughly but there still doesn't seem to be a fix for the WPA/WPA2 AES problem which is a disappointment as you will still be restricted to APs/networks running with TKIP Only encryption.<br /><br />USB tethering won't be of much use to most of the people I expect will see this as it requires a special <b><i>additional</i></b> data package from Verizon to enable it, without it you just end up staring at a page listing pricing options for the tethering plan. Also it won't do you much good on Windows as currently there is no client software to enable the 3G connection (Ubuntu seems to detect it just. I find Azilink still works just fine and PDAnet and Proxoid should still work (assuming you had gotten them working properly in the first place). <br /><br />Overall the change to Froyo is positive, it brings some useful features like the new locking options and software buttons for the phone functions on the home screens, but does do away with a few features you may have liked.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-28764426004780234772010-08-03T13:01:00.003-04:002010-08-03T13:42:19.121-04:00Polls and ISPs<a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/rc10 "><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 335px; height: 121px;" src="http://www.linuxjournal.com/ufiles/Readers_Choice.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />First off, I thought people might be interested in a chance to vote on Linux Journal's 2010 Reader's Choice awards. They have categories covering hardware vendors, cellphones and gadgets, IDEs and CMS, distros and all manner of other selections where you can pick your favorite products, services and projects in the OSS/Linux world. If you are interested, click the image above. You will have to submit an e-mail address with your votes but they promise not to spam you with it and I trust them, besides, I'm sure you have at least one throw-away or spam magnet e-mail account to use if you really want to be sure.<br /><br /><br />Now on to another issue, ISPs and their services. After around a decade I have finally decided that Verizon's DSL offerings just don't cut it anymore (admittedly that might have something to do with the fact that I am now running a Tor relay and seeding torrents of linux distros and videos from The Next HOPE). For the last couple of years we have been trying to get Verizon's FIOS service but they refuse to offer it in my area and still only offering a 1.5Mb/256Kb DSL line as your top tier plan just doesn't cut it. Unfortunately I have been unable to find someone with better service at a reasonable price (probably because almost all the DSL providers in my area are just resellers for Verizon (yay! an extra layer of useless customer dis-service people on top of the already useless ones that actually have some ability to do something). The handful of other (ie non-DSL) broadband providers all want to gouge me and take over my TV and phone service. So, despite some misgivings, Time Warner now has my ISP business as well. I wonder how well their 'digital phone' offering will work with my Western Electric set.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-22812304278205699622010-07-26T12:40:00.005-04:002010-07-26T19:12:08.720-04:00Developments and delaysI know I had said I would be trying to post some of the ideas I had at The Next HOPE but The past week has seen me rather distracted from that goal. Aside from trying to recover physically (turns out a 3:1 ratio of Club Mate to water over the course of a weekend isn't such a good idea) trying to catch up on the news (particularly the 2600/HOPE/OTH related stuff I had missed in the runup to and during the conference) and then catching up on the new release of my primary Linux distro.<br /><br />That last item has probably been the largest source of delays and distractions as they had made a few changes that seriously screwed with my graphics drivers (eliminating SaX2 and introducing the Neauvou drivers as the new default) which lead to a couple of days of madly trying to hand configure my xorg.conf and so on, prompting an additional change of desktop. The last chapter in that was the change from multiple independent NICs to bonded NICs, complicated by some odd configuration issues (gateway settings getting lost randomly) and one of the cards randomly dropping out and loosing it's kernel module declarations. I had thought that that card had finally crapped itself as it had become entirely non responsive after an attempt to move it to a different physical bus which lead to me purchasing a replacement this afternoon ($23 isn't bad for a gigabit NIC of known origins in New York). In the process of installing the new card I noticed that the previous card had been non responsive because it had been incorrectly seated (hard to do with a PCI connector). So bond0 now has three slaves eth0-2, all running at Gigabit speeds, which I think is about the appropriate level of overkill for my lousy DSL modem.<br /><br />Then there was the idea of running a Tor node on the same workstation, not exactly well suited to NYC's anemic residential DSL connections (seriously, 300kbps upstream is the best you can do Verizon?) but having listened to a recording of the Wikileaks keynote from HOPE I figured I should try to contribute to the larger community more. It turns out that I always forget about the pseudo-firewall built into most SOHO routers, a fact that eluded me for a couple of hours. But I'm now providing a Tor relay, even if my available bandwidth is pretty lousy. Maybe I'll set one up on my station at work too, the T3 doesn't get much of a workout on weekends.<br /><br />Now that things on those fronts have calmed down I might actually get myself to write something a bit more thought provoking.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-28954274131298738432010-07-20T07:33:00.002-04:002010-07-20T07:47:30.235-04:00I survived The Next HOPE!I think I have now almost completely physically recovered from my experiences at The Next HOPE (my back still doesn't seem happy about sleeping on the mezanine floor Sunday). Even though I spent most of my time there hawking Club-Mate it was a great time and I want to thank a few people in particular: Flo and Ragnar for helping me at the Mate stand when I needed the breaks, Neo Amsterdam for including me in the cast of 26 o'clock (I will link when the Statler archives are available), Thurmon (not sure if that is spelled right) and Nick Farr for keeping an eye on me when the lack of sleep and the tainted water got to me, and Robert Steele for being a good neighbor in the Vendor Area.<br />I'm sure there are a few more people I should be thanking here but the names and reasons escape me at the moment.<br />I have a few ideas for posts that have come out of the experience an I will try to get those up as well soon.<br /><br />For now though, thanks again to everyone who made The Next HOPE the experience it was.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-78696019548591247532010-05-13T12:25:00.002-04:002010-05-13T13:09:56.455-04:00Net Neutrality: A (hopefully) more reasoned lookNet Neutrality is news again this week with the passage of the UK's Digital Economy Bill (still scratching my head over how the ostensibly left/center "party of the working man" justifies that one, yet another reason I was quietly rooting for the Lib Dems), court judgments against P2P software companies, file sharers and private consumers.<br />A German court today issued a ruling in a civil case regarding a musician suing a private citizen over allegations that someone used his home internet connection to upload some of the musician's work. The court found the user partially liable and fined him. Here's the rub... the user was able to prove that he was in fact on vacation at the time, not at home. The court decided that his failure to take steps to secure his WiFi network made him partially responsible for the infringement. This is something of a double edged sword, much as the 'global linksys network' is; it might help encourage average people to take some actual interest in and responsibility for their technology but it also starts us on a path where IP holders feel justified in reaching ever further into people's homes and private lives iin the name of stopping 'piracy'. It also might be a bit of an inconvenience to lose some of that once omnipresent WiFi access, although hopefully the slack can be taken up by improvements in 'mobile broadband' (ie, dropping prices, improved speeds, greater compatibility).<br /><br />LimeWire was also found to have been responsible for "encouraging, enabling and profiting from infringing activity". Well that much was pretty obvious to everyone but there is still that issue of the entertainment industry being ridiculously out of touch with the consumer. Although a sufficiently harsh judgment against LW Inc might finally shutdown that malware hose.<br /><br />That last case leads all to directly to a bunch of points that have already been made all too often already and at least occasionally, been made better than I could. So, on the headlining question: "Just what the fuck is 'Net Neutrality'?"<br />Everyone seems to have their own divergent and slightly unique idea and definition, so here is mine.<br /><br />Net Neutrality is (or at least in my view, should be) an outright requirement of basic truth and honesty in services offered(not exactly telco and entertainment industry strengths) and a ban on any form of censorship, monitoring or interference by any service provider (beyond the basic QoS/service prioritization required by the TCP/IP stack) and a requirement that if any service provider wants to offer a censored or 'cleaned up' access service (we know there is a market for it, look at some of the specialist DNS providers) they must offer the same service free of such limitations at the same or less cost to the customer. Essentially ISPs (be they traditional telcos, mobile service providers, cable companies, or anything else) should act as dumb pipes, completely blind to what flows through their pipes, just ensuring the fast and reliable delivery of each packet to it's destination. If they also want to offer content services, good for them put they cannot prioritize that traffic above any other traffic of the same type (ie, Time Warner couldn't prioritize their VoIP traffic over, say, Skype or Vonage). It should ultimately be up to the customer, the end user, what they see, what they do and who they communicate with.<br /><br />Also, I want my ISP to bring back their NEWS server(s), and run them properly this time. Heck, I might even be tempted to run it myself if they could get me something better the the shitpile aDSL line they stuck me with.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5812792900103933494.post-59422834665655911832010-04-21T13:14:00.002-04:002010-04-21T13:33:47.603-04:00Time marches on, so we must prepareWow, a bit over four and a half months since my last update (in my defense at least a quarter of that time was spent trying to stop procrastinating about it or trying to comeup with something at least slightly original to say). We have gotten closer to The Next HOPE (<a href="http://thenexthope.org/">http://thenexthope.org/</a>) and I have been wracking my mind trying to develop a decent talk after S1depocket seeded the idea at one of the NYC 2600 meetings, he's also suggested some even more outlandish ideas for projects and hacks for the conference (although our personal favorite will likely have to wait another two years as there just doesn't seem to be quite enough time to finish developing the presentation that would accompany it [a development of my earlier post <a href="http://blog.nite0wl.net/2009/04/on-alternative-interfaces.html">"On Alternative Interfaces"</a>] and put together the necessary gear). <br /><br />Since that seems to put that idea in line for further development, particularly when included with some material on telepresence, I now have to figure out if I want to try that out this year or develop some of my other ideas for a talk; one about the history of copyright and DRM and another on the relationship and interfacing of people and machines (this is less about interface technologies and more about perception, emotion and psychology).<br /><br />Now, while I doubt that I have many readers (if any), I would like to hear from them (assuming that they exist) as well as any web transients who stumble onto this. What do you think? Any particular preference on which topics I should pursue? Any ideas on things to include in one of these? Let me know in the comments.Nite 0wlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01636814558553861900noreply@blogger.com0